The Taken

Chapter Eight

As might be expected of a reporter, Kit had a knack for words. She noticed nuance and inflection, valuing precision in word choice and crispness of tone. Griffin Shaw didn’t enunciate half of what he should, she picked that up right away, letting his gerunds and suffixes fall away so that if she were writing them, she’d have to use a lot of apostrophes.

But she wasn’t writing them down, and that only partly because she was driving. Instead she kept catching herself gazing over at him, specifically at his full bottom lip when he spoke, his voice lodged deeply in his throat, as if only escaping reluctantly to take flight in the air. He was not a man overly fond of chitchat. Yet she liked it when he did speak. His voice was like gravel rolling around inside a buckskin pouch, and well-suited to his languid watchfulness, the half-lidded gaze, the wide-legged slump. He was like a lion in repose, his strength quiet and coiled until it was needed.

Kit knew. She’d seen him pounce.

And that’s really why she agreed to help him. She’d never partnered with anyone but Nic before, and that only because their skills were complimentary, not competing. Kit was something of a lone wolf herself. Yet it seemed apropos to take on a partner who was not only investigating Nic’s death, but who had prevented her own. Because even through the drugged haze of fear, shock, and pain, she’d seen her death coming. It’d looked like all the pain she’d ever felt had taken form to rise up against her, as tangible as a tsunami.

And then, because of Griffin Shaw, it was gone.

It was enough to have her overlook the way he’d put out his cigarette in her vintage Zeisel vase, and had obviously been pawing through her things while she slept. And if there was still an unknown element to him-including his mysterious entry into her house and life-well, Kit liked a good mystery as well as anyone.

She was also damned fine at her job. She’d find out everything there was to know about Griffin Shaw. In time.

But first, she thought, hand whipping her glossy wooden steering wheel to the left, who the hell killed my girl?

“Who the hell taught you to drive?” Grif asked, bracing against the door.

“My dad. Parked his car on an unpaved stretch of desert when I was twelve and made me go backwards. I had to perfect it before I was ever allowed to go forward.”

“He drive one of these foreign tin cans, too?”

“It was a patrol car,” Kit said, smiling slightly. She was used to the scorn from her friends. They all bought American, drove American, bled American. It was her one deviation from her rockabilly lifestyle-forgoing the old Fords and Chevys for this tight, sweet Italian ride. That stubbornness was a trait she’d inherited from her mother, who’d willingly conformed to the things that defined her-cop’s wife, professional mother-in all ways but one.

Shirley Wilson-Craig had refused to be domesticated. She’d cook, but only dishes made with fresh market ingredients, most of which took all day. She tidied, but hired someone else to clean. And she’d schedule playdates so Kit would never want for friends, but would never dress down for them, and never, ever carpool.

“Life should be lived as art,” she often told Kit, her ubiquitous cigarette dangling from its gold holder. “Everything has its place. Let in only those things that are greatly desired, no more and no less. That’s how to make sense of the world, and the only real way to achieve happiness.”

Once, over a dinner of lobster salad and roasted lamb, Shirley had reported to Kit and her father that she’d been asked to leave a PTA meeting for wondering aloud why business couldn’t be carried out over a two-martini lunch… or at least something more civilized than stale cardboard cookies. Yet she was smiling as she refilled her blue-collar husband’s champagne glass, and the look said, I may put myself in this box, but God help the person who tries to force me into it.

And Kit would never forget the way her father had wrapped his giant hand around that fragile glass and smiled back.

That inherited stubbornness was why Kit worked at her family’s newspaper, but, despite Marin’s prodding, refused to run it. Ditto the foreign car. She was a newswoman, and rockabilly to the core, but it was those years of formal family dinners with an aristocratic mother, and a father who reveled in his wife’s quirkiness, that really defined her. They might be gone, but she was not.

“Besides,” Kit told Grif now, “this fine automobile is a classic.”

“It’s Italian.”

Kit looked over, impressed, then registered his frown. “You’re cranky.”

He snorted and gazed out the window.

“And tortured, if I’m not mistaken,” she added, using the directness she’d gotten from her father.

Another grunt.

“You torture yourself,” she ventured, shooting him a look from the corner of her eye.

The next grunt meant that was true enough.

“You should let it go,” Kit said, and still thinking of her parents, added with a laugh, “Let someone else torture you for a while.”

His dark brow lifted beneath the brim of his hat. “You applying for the job?”

“Depends on the benefits package,” she shot back, playing along. “But I think I could manage it.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d be great at it.”

She smiled, choosing to take it as a compliment. The lightness was a welcome distraction. “Well, it’ll have to wait. We’re here.”

Pulling through the newspaper’s gated entry, she gave the guard a wave on the way to her regular spot, then took a deep breath as she stepped from the car. The sky was a careless blue, too warm to be dead winter, though lacking the ripeness of full spring. Cool and dry, but still as parched and unsatisfying as a broken sauna.

Heading to the giant brick building’s side entrance, Kit gave thanks that she was still around to see it. Too late, she caught Grif’s frown, and gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m not really in the habit of waiting for others.”

And she led him into the printing rooms where the giant machines were heated but silent. She loved the sound of production and the scent of ink, and inhaled deeply, thankful again that she was here today. Looking around, she thought about all of this going away, of the Internet turning the traditional press into an archaic technology. It was enough to make her wish she was a Luddite. Unfortunately, she depended too much on the exact same technology to do her job. Lose her smart phone and she might as well lose her soul.

Kit punched the call button on the elevator, saw the cab was stuck somewhere near the seventh floor, and headed instead for the stairs. It was only three flights up. She had a body. It worked. So she would climb.

They emerged from the stairwell directly into the press room, Grif huffing behind her.

“Does every damned thing in this place have to make noise?” Grif mumbled as they wound their way through tottering cubicles.

“Never thought much about it before,” Kit said, though he was right; phones rang, computers beeped, Internet radio streamed from multiple sources, and a bank of televisions stared down at “reporters’ row” like a general looming over his troops. She shrugged out of her dress jacket, careful not to bend the scalloped collar as she hung it on the vintage coat rack just inside her office. Whirling without stopping, she jerked her head at Grif. “My aunt has the motherboard in her office.”

She waved at the few reporters-Chuck in sports and Sarah in editorial-who were in this early on a Saturday, but kept a brisk pace as she headed toward Marin’s office. When she got there, she pulled up short. “You’re here.”

“Never left,” replied Marin, eyes glued to her computer screen. “And before you start nagging me, I took my pills, had a sandwich delivered, and catnapped on the floor. Who’s that?”

“Griffin Shaw.” Kit shot Grif an apologetic look and said, “He saved my life.”

Marin’s head shot up at that.

“And before you start nagging me, look at this.” She tossed her notebook in front of Marin, who immediately flipped to the last page. Her aunt might be controlling and stubborn, but she knew what to focus on, and when, and immediately zeroed in on the circled name.

“Same list I’ve been working on all night… though I haven’t looked up that one.”

“Who’ve you vetted?”

Tossing the notebook down, her aunt leaned back in her leather chair. “Mark Morrison, the D.A. who thinks you should vote for him just because he doesn’t wear high heels. Saul Turrets, the up-and-coming Republican who shot himself in the foot by supporting green causes. Caleb Chambers, poster boy for Mormons ’R’ Us aka ‘We’re just like you… but with five brides to each brother.’ ”

“Be fair. Chambers only has one wife.”

“That we know of.”

Kit shook her head. That was Marin. Always caustic. Always suspicious.

“He’s alibied anyway,” Kit said. “Paul was at his fund-raiser that night.”

“Another one?” Marin rolled her eyes. “Sonja doesn’t even note them in the social blotter anymore.”

“Dozens of parties a year, yet everyone still wants to go,” Kit pointed out, then looked at her vibrating phone. “Speak of the devil…”

“Who, Chambers?” Marin sat a bit straighter. Sure, she’d take shots at the man, but he was a local shot-maker.

“No. Paul.”

Marin growled, and slumped again.

“Who’s Paul?” Grif asked.

“Someone Kit once carried in on her shoe.”

Grif snorted, and leaned against the wall. Kit ignored both them and the call. Paul abandoned her at the station in the wake of Nic’s death. He hadn’t been there when she’d emerged like a newborn into an uncertain world the next morning. And last night… well, she could be dead right now and he’d be none the wiser.

He could leave a message.

“I’m confused,” Grif said suddenly, half-turning in the doorway, gesturing to the room behind him. “You own all this, and yet you’re pounding the street, setting up stings?”

“I don’t own it. It’s family-run.”

“You’ll be the only one running it when I croak.”

“Marin,” Kit chided.

Her aunt merely smiled. “That’s why I forced the office on her. She’d be out in the pen with the others if she could, but there has to be some separation marking her for future greatness. For now, she doesn’t want to be in management.”

“Why?”

“She finds it intellectually numbing and a waste of her prodigious talent for pissing people off.”

“Because I believe in working my way up from the ground floor.”

“Here we go,” muttered Marin.

“I believe in free press. I believe the world is basically good, and a good journalist can make it even better. In fact, it’s our moral obligation to make a difference-”

“These days, we’re lucky to make our rent.”

Kit shook her head. “No, this place won’t close. We’re not bloggers who don’t fact-check, or paparazzi who create drama, then get sued, then throw their sources to the wind. We don’t just give our readers the easy answer, we give them the truth.”

Grif raised a brow in Marin’s direction. “She always like this?”

“You got her started.”

“Hey,” Kit said, catching her aunt’s eye. “Knowing the truth is important.”

Marin bit her lip, then nodded.

“Anyway,” Kit said, clearing her throat and her mind. “The street is where I belong. That’s where the stories are.”

“Which brings us back to you, Mr. Shaw.” Marin swiveled, her eyes again sharp. “What’s your story?”

Kit propped a hip on a sliver of cleared desk space, and waited. This man could fight off two armed men with nothing more than fists and a molten rage, but how would he stack up under the full weight of the Marin Wilson treatment?

Grif shoved his hands back into his pockets. “Everyone gotta have a story in this place?”

Not answering a direct question from Marin was as bad as screaming a lie. She leaned forward. “It’s a newspaper.”

“This an interview?”

“Prefer an interrogation?”

He dropped one shoulder. “Not bothered by either, really.”

“Then you’re either a criminal or a saint.”

Grif snorted. “I ain’t no saint.”

“Grif is a P.I.,” Kit interrupted. “He’s investigating Nic’s murder.”

Marin’s brows lifted. “How you doing so far?”

“I got you a name.”

“And saved my niece’s life?”

“Yes.”

Marin stared at Grif a moment longer, then turned back to her computer. “So let’s see where it leads us.” She picked up the notebook and flexed her fingers. “Lance Schmidt. Doesn’t ring a bell, which is why I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Her fingers danced over keys with missing letters. Marin treated finding information like a battle to be won. Yet she froze unexpectedly, then blew out a long breath.

“What?” Kit asked.

Marin flipped the screen her way. “Please tell me you don’t know him.”

Kit rocketed to her feet, pointing at the screen. “That’s the guy who attacked me!”

Nodding, Grif straightened, too. Marin cursed, then pulled the screen back around, scrolling down. “Lance Arnold Schmidt, forty-two years old, born in L.A., moved here when he was twelve. Divorced, no kids, and…” She looked away from the computer, into Kit’s eyes. “Vice sergeant in charge of the sexual crimes division.”

Shit. Kit looked at Grif. “He’s a cop.”

He’s the cleaner,” Grif said, earning a steely, considered look from Marin, and causing Kit to stare. The image of him flying from the corner of her bedroom flashed through her mind. He’d emerged like a dark knight to beat back a murderer-a cop-and he hadn’t been scared then. Even with this new knowledge he didn’t look scared. “Dirty cop,” he muttered darkly, shaking his head.

“He could be the one organizing the prostitution ring,” Marin added, thoughts flashing so quickly across her face it was like reading a ticker tape. “But he’s not calling the shots.”

“How do you know?” Kit asked.

Marin leaned back in her chair. “The powers-that-be don’t dirty their own soft palms. Those who can afford it pay for distance from their crimes.”

“Let me see that,” Kit said, coming around to Marin’s side of the desk. Lance Schmidt’s hard face, looking into the camera lens so directly, caused an involuntary shudder to run through her. “I’m going to call Dennis.”

Marin looked up sharply. “You sure? He’s a cop, too.”

Kit reached for her purse. “He’s a friend.”

Grif was beside her so quickly she jumped. His hand was hot on her arm, his fingertips like wires. “No heat.”

Glaring, Kit jerked away. “I told you. He’s a friend, and there’s no way he’s in on something like-”

“I don’t care,” Grif said shortly. “Schmidt is getting away with this, so he ain’t working alone. It’s like a web. Something touches one corner of it, and the reverberations are felt across the entire network. So no cops.”

Kit finally nodded. No cops for now. She leaned back over the desk. “Let’s dig deeper, then. But I don’t want him to know we’re looking.”

Marin looked up at her. “You mean the family archives?”

It wouldn’t erase their e-tracks entirely, but there was nothing to be done about that. The police had resources.

But Kit had Aunt Marin, who wasn’t only the editor-in-chief of the Las Vegas Tribune, she was an information magpie. Every story by every reporter in the last thirty years had been meticulously archived, whether it ended up running in the paper or not. There were plenty of reasons the latter might happen-political sensitivity, timeliness, speculation that couldn’t be corroborated-but Marin believed knowledge should be preserved, even prized.

Reporters had learned over the years to capitalize on her insatiable appetite for information. A small bit of gossip, properly dated and vetted, could earn a free lunch or a plum assignment, in addition to a byline. A tiny fact, woven in with others, might be rewarded at bonus time. As for the undocumented tips and reports, Marin called those “potholders”-something a preschooler could cobble together and not particularly valuable, but damned handy when the kitchen got hot.

Some journalists called her a gossip, a scandal addict who hoarded secrets and held them over the heads of the powerful and wealthy in order to gain personal favor and exclusive stories. But Marin had never blackmailed anyone, and was the least political person Kit knew. Besides, she knew what others couldn’t… her aunt came by the habit honestly, learning it from her grandfather, who began the secret archives when he took over the paper. Yet no one would ever suggest the honorable Dean S. Wilson, who had a school and a street and a day named after him, was a slanderer. But Marin was a woman, and Marin was in charge. Those inclined to find fault would do so for those reasons alone.

For Kit, Marin’s info-hoarding meant only two things. First, she wasn’t the one who had to buy everyone lunch. And second, she had access to a treasure trove of information in the family archives that went all the way back to the paper’s inception in 1932.

“It’ll take time, but a cop isn’t squeaky-clean one day and then running flesh the next,” Kit said. “Not in an operation of this size. I bet there were rumors. There had to be other lists his name popped on first.”

Marin considered it. “My sources at Metro have been a little tight lately, but they were flush ten years ago, about the time Schmidt hit the force.”

“So anything from then ’til now,” Kit said, then remained hunched over the computer as she peered up at Grif. “Meanwhile, since I’m operating in shades of gray, you might as well gimme one of your names.”

Grif backed up a step. “What, now?”

Marin honed in on his reticence like a circling hawk. “What names?”

“He’s working on a cold case,” Kit said quickly, defending Grif though she didn’t know why. “He needs our help.”

Marin’s gaze narrowed. “Why can’t he go to the cops?”

Kit pointed to the obvious, Detective Schmidt’s face on the screen. “He. Saved. My. Life.” She turned to Grif. “Name?”

Looking down, he shifted his weight, hands shoved deep into his pockets. After a moment, he lifted his eyes and stared at Marin.

Marin huffed and rolled her shoulders. “I’m going to Starbucks. Text me if Mr. Shaw here happens to save your life again while I’m gone. Or if anything pops on Schmidt.”

She walked out without looking back.

Grif shifted his eyes. “Breath of fresh air.”

“Minty,” Kit agreed, settling herself in Marin’s still-warm chair. “Name?”

“Evelyn,” he said at last. “Evelyn Shaw.”

Kit typed it in, aware that he’d grown unnaturally still after moving to stand behind her. Shaw, just like him. Was it a sister? Or a wife? Kit wondered as she scrolled through the search results. She’d caught the way his eyes tightened at the corners, which had her automatically leaning toward the latter, and which meant she’d have to put even brief thoughts of his full bottom lip out of her mind.

Yet there was only one hit, and it was from fifty years earlier. Brows raised, she leaned back. “You weren’t kidding when you said it’s an old case.”

Evelyn Shaw, age twenty-four, had died in a casino robbery. The Marquis, one of the oldest, had also been the ritziest in its time. It’d since been demolished, of course. Newer was better, or so the thought went… all the way up until it wasn’t. Las Vegas had lost much of the glitter and kitsch that’d made it shine, and the unfinished, unfunded white elephant that now stood in The Marquis’ stead was proof enough of that.

The article Kit pulled up was just an old police blotter, there had to be more, but the caption alone had her riveted. “Starlet Dies in Botched Bungalow Robbery.” And linked to it was a photo. “Wow. She was beautiful.”

Slim in a way Kit could only dream of, Evelyn Shaw was also bright-faced and beaming, unaware at the time the photo was taken that her life would be short. And her end was brutal. An attack in one of the hotel’s courtyard bungalows that had been so fashionable back then. No witnesses, no leads.

God, Kit thought, looking at the poor woman’s dainty features, had someone killed this man’s beloved grandmother?

Grif’s silence and unnerving stillness prevented Kit from asking, but she wanted to know more-and yes, to help him, too. She did so in the only way she could. Fingers flying over the keys, she said, “Let me go deeper.”

But a ping sounded, a flash from Marin’s search, and Grif let out a long exhale behind her. Later then, she thought, sensing his relief. Right now, Schmidt…

“Ah, so you’ve had your hand slapped before,” she said, as Schmidt’s face lit the screen again, less jarring this time. It wasn’t solid intelligence, which is why Marin hadn’t found it in the official search, just some hearsay by a reporter who’d befriended some runaways and, Kit noted, who transferred to a newspaper in the Midwest shortly after. “Schmidt was forced into paid leave when he was on patrol. A motorist filed a civil suit against him.”

“For what?”

“Misconduct of a public officer, coercion using physical force, and oppression under color of office.”

“Let me guess. The motorist was female.”

Good guess. “Charges were dropped, his patrol term was up, and he requested transfer to the sexual crimes unit.”

“Where he used his position to coerce and oppress women who make their living off the streets… at least until you and your girlfriend decided to play Nancy Drew.”

Kit couldn’t even work up ire at the jab. Schmidt’s idea of coercion was alive in the bruises on her flesh. “And now he’s after me.”

Grif jerked his chin at the computer. “Cross-reference the names. See if there’s a connection between Schmidt and any of the others.”

“Good idea.”

“I know,” he said drily.

“Marin will do it,” Kit decided, and set about writing her aunt a quick note.

“Why not you?”

“Because I need to do some creative thinking.”

Grif shook his head. “Which means?”

It meant her little story on prostitutes, johns, and the motivations of each had evolved into an editorial on a prostitution ring and a crooked cop. There was murder, attempted murder, and a list of politicians powerful enough to destroy a small principality.

And don’t forget the sexy stranger who’d assigned himself as your protector, she thought, with a glance Grif’s way. One clearly harboring secrets of his own.

“What do you mean?” Grif asked again, impatiently.

Blowing the bangs from her forehead, Kit tossed the pen and finally looked up. “It means, Mr. Shaw, that I need to get my hair pinned.”